Past Lives

originally posted February 7, 2006

I was content on the Plains of Turia. It was past the time of Cabot, past 'The Year In Which Tarl Cabot Came To The Wagon Peoples'. It was there that I learned to be more than a Poet, more than a Singer. On the Plains, a fellow must learn to make War. He must learn to hunt. "Are the Quiva sharp?" one is often asked. It is akin to "Tal" or "Greetings" insomuch as survival is as highly regarded to the Wagon People as cordiality. One is often asked, too, by way of greetings, as to the condition of his bosk or his opinion with respect to the lubrication of Wagon Wheels. It is a simpler life. A ruder life. I was content to live it.
That is not to say I was remarkable with bladed weapons or even passable in the saddle of the Southern Kaiila. In fact, I rarely found the occasion present itself where walking was not preferable to mounting such a foul beast. Their temperment is not, shall we say, to my liking. I would rate myself between fair and poor with an edged weapon. What skill I did possess, I would concede, laid in the blade and its craftsmanship. The quiva is a terrible and simple weapon. It is made for throwing, for killing, and little else. None of this is written for posterity. Should this be read in the future, long after I walk in the Cities of Dust, I openly admit I made for a poor Tuchuk. Tuchuk, however begrudgingly at first, accepted me. I lived amongst them, as them, for fifteen years.
Had I arrived, young and brash and more than a bit disrespectful, before The Year In Which Tarl Cabot Came To The Wagon Peoples, perhaps I would not have been accepted. Much as I find that famous fellow worthy of neither bread nor salt in Glorious Ar, I do not doubt that the fact he was well liked made my own assimilation far smoother and much less deadly than it might have been. I sometimes wonder at how pitifully civil I've become in the years since my return. I do not carry seven quiva. I have a small knife with which to pare red fruit or, should the whim strike me, whittle at sticks. I do not maintain a bosk which will serve as draft animal during times of plenty and, possibly, as meat during the Season of Little Rain. In place of such a noble animal, I own a vicious Sleen. She is a marvel of nature, a perfect tracker who assures the protection of my assets. I do not foresee a day when Tasta will sacrifice her pelt that I not freeze, not in temperate Ar. Nor do I imagine the occasion she will offer her flanks to feed me when the spoils of the hunt become scarce. I hunt for sustinence, these days, in the Teiban Market where the lack of rain is merely an inconvenience. Perhaps the peaches are not as plump in their bins as in years past. It may be that the cost of a larma fruit is higher than I might like.
I have come to understand that the importance of a man's Caste and how dear to him his Home Stone is shape him no less than his experiences. I have loved fiercely, known the pride of fatherhood and shared the Grass and Earth with men perhaps a thousand pasangs from where I write this. Far beyond the safety of bricks & mortar and tarnwire of my city, a fellow with a scarred face and calloused palms eats the rough, gamey fare offered by a girl in Chatka & Curla. He does not care to notice the hot grease of his meal as it stains his fingers and chin. From time to time, I wonder if he recalls the poet Szol.